Monday, December 23, 2013

Nordpolitik

Nordpolitik
or Northern Policy was a foreign policy towards the communist countries by the
Roh Tae Woo administration. When the period of Détente ushered during the
1970’s, it was time to move away from a foreign policy based on ideology to a
policy that will benefit the Republic of Korea. It was became a way for
Korea to increase presence in the world stage. In addition, it intended
to isolate further or bring the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to
have a dialogue with Seoul.Nordpolitik
began during the late 1980’s at the start of the administration of the first
directly elected president of South Korea – Roh Tae-woo. In July of 1988, he
announced that South Korea would begin engaging with communist countries. It
was dubbed as Nordpolitik, which was similar to the Ostpolitik or Eastern
Policy of West Germany. The policy was a follow up to the opening of relation
of western countries, like the US and Great Britain, to the communist bloc
nations. Furthermore, it also served as a response to Soviet Premier
Mikhail Gorbachev’s Glasnost (opening) which would allow USSR to engage with
diplomatic relations with other nations.

As soon
as the policy began, diplomatic talks for establishing formal diplomatic
relations with communist countries began. One of the first to engage on talks
with the Republic of Korea was the center of the communist world, the USSR.
Talks began between USSR and South Korea and resulted to the opening of an
office of the Korean Trade Promotion Corporation in Russia on summer of 1989.
This was then followed up by a summit of leaders between the two countries in
San Francisco on June of 1990. The San Francisco Summit was followed by two
other meetings, one in Moscow on December 1990 and another in Jeju Island on
April of 1991. These summits resulted to the apology of Russia on the shooting
down of KAL 007 back in 1983 It also allowed the USSR to receive a loan of $3
billion from South Korea. And finally, it led to the establishing of formal
diplomatic relation between the two countries on 1991. Once Moscow began talks
with Seoul, other communist countries followed like China, which established
relations with Korea on August of 1992.

Besides
joining the bandwagon of opening ups, Roh aimed the Nordpolitik in increasing
the influence and presence of South Korea on the world stage. The
Nordpolitik allowed the markets for Korean products to expand to Eastern
Europe, Russia, and China. Furthermore, Seoul was to host the 1988 Summer
Olympics. The policy allowed the country to host the games without any
controversy of boycott except from its northern neighbor, North Korea. 159
countries with athletes greater than 9,000 participated, the highest
participation rate during that time. With a successful Olympic games adding the
spread of Korean products, the prestige of Korea increases.

Among the
most important objectives of the Nordpolitik was to make North Korea to open
up. The idea was that with friendly relations with North Korea’s allies, the
North would be willing to engage with the South. The South tried its best
to make the North to talk. For instance, Roh proposed to the North an
inter-Korean visit of professionals and separated families, assistance to the
improve DPRK – Japan and the US relations, and most of all, an inter-Korean Summit.
Kim Il-sung however was undeterred on opening up. Kim Il-Sung continued his
isolationist Juche or self-reliance ideology. Diplomatic relations of the DPRK
with Japan and US didn’t go quite well. Finally, the inter-Korean summit didn’t
materialize not until 2000 under Nordpolitik’s successor, theSunshine
Policy. Changing North Korea’s stance with Nordpolitik somehow failed.

The
Nordpolitik gained limited success. Korea hosted a successful Olympic Games.
Korean companies benefited to the new markets for exports and contracts.
However, the Nordpolitik was a failure in opening North Korea.

See Also: SadaeSunshine PolicyOstpolitikBibliography: Brune, L. The
Korean War: Handbook of the Literature and Research. Connecticut: Greenwood
Press, 1996.Cha, V. Beyond
the Final Score: The Politics of Sports in Asia. New York: Columbia
University Press, 2009. Kim, J. International Politics and Security in
Korea. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, 2007.